UMADEQ-15-M: As an equity portfolio manager, you would like to invest your fund’s money in stocks: Financial Investments in Practice Report, UWE, UK

Assessment task:

As an equity portfolio manager, you would like to invest your fund’s money in stocks. Your investment is expected to be held for at least one year before being rebalanced.

For your selection of stocks, you can choose either the UK or US stock exchange market (but only from one market).

You need to conduct an investment analysis and prepare a professional report stating which sectors (3 sectors are required for diversification) and stocks you would invest in, your strategic asset allocation, and the key results from your quantitative analysis.

More specifically, you should conduct an analysis of the economy, of the sectors (industries), and then identify three stocks that you think should be bought. Your analysis will be based on:

1) News on the economy, industry, and the companies;
2) Economic trends;
3) Industry analysis
4) Fundamental analysis;
5) Technical analysis;

In your report, you should also clearly state your investment philosophy or strategy.

Please be aware that you are expected to follow the following format:

1) A short discussion (no more than one page) of your strategy and choice of portfolio composition (no factsheet but possibly mentioning some relevant statistics);

2) A macroeconomic analysis with a short professional economic outlook supported by the main economic indicators;

3) An industry analysis based on financial leverage, cyclicality, operating leverage, and relative strength (sensitivity of the industry to the stage of the economic cycle, not Porter’s analysis);

4) A fundamental analysis for all of the companies in the form of (i) a brief description of the company (one short paragraph); (ii) a summary of the main strengths that support a buy recommendation (2-3 reasons); (iii) a valuation using the discounted free cash flow model and price multiples model (only these 2 models).

5) A technical analysis for the index and only two of the companies, presented in a short professional report;

6) An appendix with all relevant information and data used.